Hi All! Anne will be doing a waulking at the Utah Scottish Festival and Highland Games On june 9 at 11 am, The Festival is an annual event and will be held at the Utah State Fairpark on North Temple Street in Salt Lake City. More info can be found here:
What is ‘Waulking’?
Waulking, or luadh (‘loo-ugh’) in Gaelic, is the time-honored process of hand finishing woolen cloth in the traditional way. In the Scottish Gaidhealtachd, most especially in the Hebrides, this method survived into the twentieth century and consists of getting a group of people (usually women) seated around a large table where they thump, rub and pass the newly woven wetted cloth while singing traditional Orain Luadh (rythmic gaelic waulking songs). This is still one of the most effective (& fun!) ways to wet-finish hand woven woolens, and has always served the very practical purpose of making the resulting cloth tight, strong and weather-proof.
Anne was very fortunate to begin learning about these traditional songs and methods as a child at her Grandfather’s knee, and from Scottish Master weaver & tradition bearer Norman Kennedy. If you would like to know more about it, feel free to join us at the waulking on Saturday, as has been said “Many hands make light work”. See you there!
